The twist involving Sarah Polley in THE SWEET HEREAFTER shocked me to death. We see her with her "boyfriend" making out, all normal, until it's revealed her "boyfriend" is her father. My jaw was on the floor.

My top picks that year: Sarah Poley in The Sweet Hereafter, Julianne Moore in Boogie Nights (should have won), Sigourney Weaver in The Ice Storm, and Anne Heche in Wag the Dog

Judgement at Nuremberg

The Verdict

For me, all the jump scares made Smile so scary that I couldn't even finish it. I got about 40 minutes in and then decided the movie was too scary to continue watching. I still haven't finished watching it but I will eventually.

Smile is the first horror movie I couldn't finish because it was too scary; and all of the jump scares are the reason why.

I would have picked Julianne Moore, but I don't think I've ever agreed with a best actor pick in my life. All I can really say is I'm glad Bassinger got it over Cusack.

Dazed and Confused, idk of its universal standing tho

Best of the best. Super cool movie, great story about family, friends, yoga, kick ass action, smoking in bars etc..

It also confuses me how people would even have any expectation of Smile not having that. I didn’t even watch a trailer and it’s such a transparently by-the-numbers jump scare filled horror movie.

One of my absolute favourite historical/war epics is Sergei Bondarchuk's Waterloo (1970).

The movie has mind-boggling battle sequences utilising thousands of Soviet soldiers as extras, along with an entire cavalry brigade. Along with the equally epic battles in Bondarchuk's War and Peace adaptation, it's probably the closest we'll ever get to the sheer scale of Napoleonic battles. Especially considering it's all non-CGI (even Ridley Scott's upcoming Napoleon will use a lot of VFX, judging from behind the scenes shots).

However, the movie was a flop and one of the last of it's kind. Perhaps this is because the drama (and more intimate side of things) is not so good, and definitely inferior to War and Peace. Chris Plummer is outstanding as Wellington and really gives off a "pompous aristocrat" vibe. However, Rod Steiger is IMO completely awful as Napoleon and delivers some of the absolute worst lines of the movie (he also hams it up many times). Other than that, you have a relatively weak supporting cast and Orson Welles in a two-scene cameo as Louis XVIII.

Ironically, the movie's box-office failure was one of the reasons Stanley Kubrick cancelled his long-planned Napoleon project. However, the movie has since become a cult classic amongst Napoleonic era geeks and fans of historical epics in general.

For interest, it's complately available for free on YouTube, including a fan cut with stills of deleted/lost scenes (the movie was made back in the 70's when saving outtakes was almost unheard of - especially given it flopped - so the deleted footage is probably lost forever).

Interestingly, Kubrick's Napoleon project has been mooted as a HBO miniseries, with reportely Spielberg producing and the now disgraced Fukunaga directing (Spielberg himself also seems to have been named director at one point). It remains to be seen if it actually ends up being made, especially after Scott's biopic is released. Most likely though, the battles will be CGI-heavy instead of the real extras (from the Romanian army) that Kubrick envisioned.

Listen to the Andrew Garfield one if you enjoyed this one.

Whoops, my bad

Bughuul

Colin Farrell is fantastic in these strange or absurd "sitcom" type of movies. Banshees, In Bruges, The Lobster, Seven Psycopaths.

Many of the BEST war movies were made during the pre-CGI era (read: practical sets and effects and sometimes hundreds if not thousands of real extras). Here are some of the best ones, all of which have a large war component (copy-pasted from an earlier comment):

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

War and Peace (1966-67 quadrilogy)

Waterloo (1970)

Come and See (1985)

Tora Tora Tora (1970)

Kelly's Heroes (1970)

The Great Escape (1963)

Battle of the Bulge (1965)

Patton (1970)

Cross of Iron (1977)

Stalingrad (1993)

The Longest Day (1962)

A Bridge Too Far (1977)

The Bridge at Remagen (1969)

Heaven's Gate (1980) - Technically it's about a conflict which literally has "Wars" in the title

Spartacus (1960)

Lion of the Desert (1981)

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930 and 1979 adaptations)

El Cid (1961)

Spartacus (1960)

Ben Hur (1959)

The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964)

Cleopatra (1963)

The Ten Commandments (1956)

Quo Vadis (1951)

Potop/The Deluge (1974)

Mihai Viteazul/Michael the Brave (1972 duology)

Khan Asparuh (1981 trilogy)

Dacii (1967)

Columna (1968)

Gallipoli (1981)

Chunuk Bair (1992)

The Lighthorsemen (1987)

Battle of Neretva (1969)

Liberation (1970 film series)

Battle of Moscow (1985 film series)

Dr. Zhivago (1965)

Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

The Dam-Busters (1955)

Dunkirk (1958)

Dacii (1967)

Columna (1968)

The Thin Red Line (1998)

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Napoleon (1927)

Napoleon (1955)

Austerlitz (1960)

Das Boot (1981)

Glory (1989)

Gettysburg (1993)

Note: Most of the films on this list are free of the gore present in more recent movies since Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan (which kind of revolutionarised this aspect of war movies). But they do offer a sense of the epic spectacle and sheer scale which a lot of newer movies lack.

Miss Congeniality, because there is this actress named Sandra Bullock in it

I took it as a dig at the islanders - this big important thing is happening literally within earshot and nobody cares to even try and understand it, it's just this sort of bemusing bit of background scenery to them. Which is why the sister leaves, she's just had enough of their ignorance and nonsense.

Cats 3: Hands and Paws is the one I’m really looking forward to.

That was me with Babylon. I was already getting over a stomach virus, so I was still a bit queasy; the first 25 minutes almost made me vomit. But I decided to give it a chance to see what worked and didn't work, given the polarized reviews that I have seen online. Overall I hated it; I hated it because it really could have been an alright movie that centered around a transition period in the industry with the seediness of Hollywood and dealing with the toxic press who write stories to try to kill an A-listers reputation (pretty much what is relevant today). But it wasn't; it was just a movie with lavish set decors, pretty costumes, a track you hum to once in a while, a dull script that went nowhere, and a VERY bizarre direction. The only reason I could think of why Chazelle wanted to make it was to ACTUALLY lock in a REAL Best Picture win at the Oscars (since his film won and then lost to Moonlight, plus the trailer for Babylon screamed Bp win). It's 3 hours and 9 minutes of my life I will never get back, and 3 hours and 12 minutes I could have spent watching Avatar 2 for the 3rd time.

I don't have a singular favourite movie but all my favourites either got a bunch of detractors or aren't universally known. The one exception is Lord of the Rings.

Blade Runner 2049. The plot twist is great and raises the importance of the movies themes bringing them to the forefront of the main characters inner struggle. On top the visuals are amazing. The acting is flawless, the pacing is just right for the movie to sit with you and linger on.

Nausicaä of the valley of the wind. The anime adaptation of Hayao Miyazaki's Manga magnum opus. It's a unique science fantasy story set in a call post apocalypse. The world created for that movie alone elevates it to being one of my favourite movies.

The Tale of the princess Kaguya. It's the most raw animated movie I've ever seen and the first movie to get me to cry uncontrollably during a movie.

Off the top of my head, Martyrs, A Serbian Movie, Cannibal Holocaust, Salo and Irreversible. And I haven't even had my morning coffee yet

This has got to be the first time I’ve heard of a Tarantino film being called a “comfort film”

At the local festival I buy a pass that lets me see nearly all films. One time the movie sucked so bad I walked out and went to a movie that was so bad I walked out and went to a movie starting a half hour later. That movie also seemed bad so I walked out and went to the next movie that was starting. I should have stayed in the second one since it seemed better than the third one.

There is something about the movie,P.S. I Love You, that gets me crying every time I watch it.

She must not like sand as well

Yes.